


time spent in between

by quick_ly



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Coming of Age, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:39:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quick_ly/pseuds/quick_ly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s spring of 2014 when Ian is finally sent back home</p>
            </blockquote>





	time spent in between

**Author's Note:**

> First fic posted to this site (it seems like this is the place for decent fic these days?), as well as my first attempt at anything Shameless related, so if this is a piece of shit that doesn't look right, I hope you'll forgive me. Feedback is always appreciated.

_i. chicago_

_may, 2014_

 

It’s spring of 2014 when Ian is finally sent back home – couldn’t even make it a year before they found out his dirty little secret (well, if stealing your brother’s identity can really be called dirty, but whatever). Lip had gone and sent in his deposit for MIT, making sure to dot every _I_ and make it crystal clear that he, Phillip Gallagher, had been living in Chicago for the last five months. Ian was discharged a month later.

 

(And it’s not even like Lip fucking knew if all that would get someone to notice that the Phillip Gallagher who enlisted last winter was not in fact Phillip Gallagher – after all, he’d been the one back in December to convince Fiona not to going hunting for Ian, made this big speech about how it was his dream and that if the army had any clue who he really was they’d kick him out and never let him back in. But then the opportunity just sort of presented itself, and it’s not like Lip was going to not attend college because Ian fucked up.)

 

(He feels a little guilty about it, but only when he’s not thinking about how Ian could get fucking killed.)

 

Mandy is actually the first one he sees, all doe-eyed and smiley and siting at his kitchen table. (Later on, when they’re smoking a joint on the porch, she says something about moving in, how her dad tried something again and she’d had enough, and that Fiona (despite who they all knew had a pretty firm distain for Mandy) had let her bunk with Debbie, on the condition that she contribute some money to the family funds and always wear pants. She doesn’t mention if the move had anything to do with Mickey, or what her dad did to him, but Ian doesn’t ask – is just glad that now he doesn’t have a reason to go over to that house.)

 

When Fiona comes down, she pauses for almost a whole minute, before hitting Ian over the head, embracing him as she punches his arm. Debbie and Carl practically jump up to hug him, Lip calls him a fucking idiot before squeezing him tight, Liam smiles. Kev and V are called over for drinks.

 

Frank isn’t around, but Ian just sort of assumes he wouldn’t notice.

 

He doesn’t ask about Mickey, because he doesn’t fucking care.

 

(Which is a big fat fucking lie, of course, because he cares a lot, way too fucking much for someone who has been rejected as many times as he has. He thought about Mickey every fucking day and night, saw his face in his head more than he had back home. Fucking cried because of how much he cared, after all the shit he was put through. Hated himself because of how many shits he still gave about that fuckwad and his life and his stupid fucking choices.

 

But he’s not going to ask – not about how he’s been or what he’s doing or who he’s been fucking. Because Ian knows what’s good for him, and if the last few months have taught him anything, it’s that Mickey Milkovich most certainly is not.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They run into each other outside the SuperMart.

 

Ian’s only been back a couple weeks, been spending most of his time hanging out (or hiding out, depending on who you ask) at the house, but Debbie has decided to start sending him out on grocery trips (today, it’s sugar for a new cake recipe she’s trying out. In the time he’s been gone, Mandy has apparently labeled herself the official taste tester, which incidentally gets her out of all shopping duties).

 

Mickey’s smoking a joint outside. Just hanging out, maybe waiting for his brothers so they can raid the place. Ian doesn’t ask.

 

When they see each other, Ian does his best not to feel like all the air has rushed out of him, the look Mickey’s giving him some odd mixture of disbelief and something else that Ian decides not to think about. He’s imagined this moment more than he’d like to admit, is betting (hoping, fearing) that Mickey has too, but it suddenly feels like he hadn’t thought enough.

 

“Gallagher,” he says it like a question, like he’s actually asking if it’s really him. There’s a hitch in his voice, the kind that makes Ian’s heart skip for just a second (but only just, because he’s already decided that it’s not going to be like it was before, they’re not just going to fall back into their habits). “How long you been back?”

 

“Few weeks.” He feels his insides crush, does his best to put on some sort of angry face that doesn’t seem too angry, just older than it was before, waits for Mickey to snap back at him with some little quip about him being such a fucking pussy that he couldn’t even last six months in the army before he got his lame-ass kicked out.

 

But he doesn’t say anything else, and Ian goes home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He lets Mickey give him a hummer in the back of the store.

 

(Shut up, shut the fuck up.)

 

It’s not like he fucking went looking for it or anything. He stops by the Kash and Grab for candy (this time, Debbie wants M&M's to decorate her cupcakes), doesn’t even know Mickey still works there. Rushes into the back of the store to grab a couple bags, and it’s only once he’s turned around that he sees it’s Mickey working the register.

 

(Which, Ian’s not even going to let himself wonder how the fuck that came to be, and for that sake, why the fuck he’s still working here. Did he scare off all potential employees; did Linda just decide to stop trying to find new workers?)

 

And he’s not exactly sure how it happens, but in the span of like five minutes they go from exchanging money to yelling at the top of their fucking lungs, shouting things like _you fucking left_ and _you made me_ , and generally acting like a couple of assholes. And then Mickey’s leading him to the back of the store and saying how much of a fucking idiot he is, and Ian is fucking following.

 

“Oh, what? You don’t want anyone to hear and you spent the last two years FUCKING IAN GALLAGHER AND –”

 

And then Mickey’s on his fucking knees, like he fucking planned this.

 

It doesn’t take long, and Mickey is back behind the counter before Ian has any chance to fuck him back.

 

(And maybe that’s what this is supposed to be – Mickey’s trying to show his affection by blowing Ian and not asking for anything in return. Like, is this his version of _I’m glad you’re back, I really_ _do love you_?

 

Ian doesn’t know what to think about that.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He waits up for Mandy that night.

 

She’s out on some sort of a date. Ian’s not sure who with, but he knows that she spent like an hour getting ready and ended up borrowing one of Fiona’s dresses last minute, so whoever this guy is he must be different.

 

She walks up to the house at 10:30, her heels lightly dragging on the pavement as she sits down next to him on the steps and takes a sip of his drink.

 

“How was your date?”

 

She smiles. “He took me out to a restaurant and kissed me on the cheek.” Mandy takes a swing. “He’s kind of a pussy.”

 

“But you like him.”

 

“Yeah, well…” She gives him back the beer, running her free hand through her hair. “Lip kind of spoiled me, you know? Now I actually kind of want to like the guys I’m fucking. Or at least I sometimes do.”

 

“That must suck for you,” he says with a smile. It’s a warm night, one of the season’s first, at least as far as Ian knows (not being around for the last five months and all). He turns over to look at Mandy, who is staring at him like she wants to tell him a secret.

 

“Hey. Don’t fuck my brother.”

 

It comes out harsh and bitter, and he thinks for a moment that this is meant to be a kind of threat. But after a minute her face warms up and she puts an arm on his shoulder and begins to move in a little closer, her eyes locking with his.

 

Ian didn’t even know that she knew. Suspected it, sure, but it’s not like he _knew_ knew, like he felt like it was something they were ever going to talk about.

 

“The last time you guys were at it, you ended up joining the fucking army. Mickey’s been in jail twice in the last two years, and now he’s married to some pregnant Russian girl. Things always end badly between you two, and I love you way too much to let you fall into it again.”

 

And – he never noticed how dark the sky actually could get around here, how possible it is to see the stars. He’s pretty sure he’s looking at one right now, but it might just be a plane. Either way, it’s still kind of pretty.

 

“He’s married. Maybe he doesn’t love her and maybe the kid isn’t his, but she’s still his wife now. He still fucking goes home and sleeps in the same bed as her. He doesn’t want to, but it’s still happening.”

 

Really, it’s a miracle that more stars aren’t shining. Most of the lights around the block seem to be off, why shouldn’t they be off all over the neighborhood?

 

“Ian, no good can come from you guys starting up again. I know you know that.” She rests her chin on his shoulder now, turning his head so that they’re face to face. “Promise me – you won’t fuck him.”

 

Ian looks back up at the sky, but his star has moved, is zooming off into the distance.

 

“I promise.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They fuck once last time in the store.

 

Again, he doesn’t plan for it – goes into the store looking for a candy bar and then just happens to find himself in the back room. (Yeah, yeah – it’s all a fucking lie. If he wasn’t looking to screw Mickey he’d shop somewhere else). There had actually been some effort to keep Mandy’s promise, but he just wakes up one morning, and it’s the beginning of summer and it’s fucking hot, and him and Mickey just sort of always find themselves fucking this time of year.

 

(And yeah, maybe he’s a little horny. Shut up. It’s been a while.)

 

And it’s fucking good. Like, he had almost forgotten how good their sex always was. He’d been thinking about Mickey a lot, but like, as a person – as someone he was romantically inclined towards. So much of their relationship had been spent on fucking or talking about fucking or thinking about it, that when he was in training because of this fucking guy, it seemed silly to just think about the sex.

 

Which, as he’s beginning to remember, was pretty fucking goddamn great.

 

But the problem comes when they’re just finishing up and breathing heavily, and Mickey mentions something about not being fucked like that in a long time. And Ian suddenly gets this flashback to when they first started out, and how they were really young and really horny and literally just fucking went for it, because they didn’t have other bullshit (like pregnant wives and fucking feelings) to worry about.

 

Like that was really all it was. Just fucking.

 

And now Mickey’s married and Ian just spent five months in the army, and no matter how hard they try to ignore it, their feelings are fucking there and relevant, and shit has changed.

 

It’s at this moment that Ian realizes it’s going to be impossible for them to bang without Ian thinking about the wife Mickey’s going home to – the wife he didn’t ask for and doesn’t want but who he has, who he is kind of responsible for. The wives his boyfriends just sort of always go home to.

 

This is when Ian knows that he’s finally done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He stops going to the Kash and Grab. The walk to the SuperMart isn’t that far.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_ii. new York_

_june, 2015_

They move out of state the summer after Ian and Mandy finish high school, their diplomas nestled neatly in frames next to Lip’s. It’s a wonder that Ian even makes it out in time, missing the whole backhand of junior year. He spends the entire 2014 break hauled up in summer school while Mandy secretly starts sending in his college applications.

 

(Ian sometimes wonders if she just has this grand plan to get all of the Gallaghers into college. Like after Liam’s gotten into fucking Dartmouth (because by then her skills will have likely been perfected), she’s just going to barge into their house and start nagging Fiona (who will be in her late thirties) about where she’s been thinking of going.

 

Ian’s not going to complain though. Somehow, despite his absence and lack of math skills, she uses his English grades to get him accepted into this little school in Brooklyn. Not on a full ride or anything, but she does get him a lot of scholarships and shit, enough that going turns out to actually be kind of an option. And if he can’t get out of the South Side through the army, college doesn’t seem like the worst way he could go.)

 

Lip is already living in the city, working for some big robotic company (he finished school in two years, the fucker), living with a little ballet dancer named Irene who everybody thinks he’s going to marry. (She’s the weirdest thing ever – dances for the New York Dance Company and could probably pick-pocket the head of the FBI. It’s no wonder they fell in love.)

 

Ian’s only been out of school a month before they’re packing up the car, getting ready to say their goodbyes, Mandy telling Debbie and Carl that they can come visit whenever they want, Fiona looking at Ian like he’s her fucking pride and joy.

 

(Of course he was going to take Mandy with him. She his best fucking friend, after all.)

 

Mickey doesn’t show up and Ian doesn’t expect him to; Mandy had said he’d already given her a call.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New York couldn’t be any more different from Chicago if it tried.

 

It’s faster than Chicago and sleeker and living in it somehow makes Ian suddenly feel like more of an adult, like as soon as they move his family feels like this big cartoon of a family, the way he describes them to his classmates. “Oh yeah, there’s my sister Fiona, who has been dating this guy Mike for a while, and then my three younger siblings. And my brother, Lip, who lives in Brooklyn with his girlfriend – he’s basically a genius.” Whenever he talks about them, people fall in love, like they all would just love to be a part of the spunky family who party hard and steal to get by, like the Gallagher’s are a fucking fairytale.

 

(And yet, once he’s out of the house, Ian does start to see the ridiculousness of them – how they are this little (big) crazy, loving family – who are both perfectly cliché and unique. But he doesn’t fucking romanticize them, the way people try to do when he talks about Mandy. “Oh, that poor girl, coming from such a rough house and finding refuge in your family,” – as if the Gallagher’s are like this charity service that saved her.)

 

He likes having actual boyfriends, though –  guys who aren’t old or married or so deep in the closet that they can hardly admit to themselves that they’re gay. He likes being with someone who doesn’t have a problem saying, “this is Ian, my boyfriend, whom I have a romantic and sexual relationship with”. (Not that there would ever be a reason for a guy he dates to say that, but still, it’s nice to know they would.) As odd as it is, he likes the act of dating someone and then breaking up, of having normal relationships that progress in the normal way. He almost relishes heartbreak, like the fact that he can actually express it in a normal environment is delightful. (Then again, it’s never really heartbreak – just a couple weeks of binge drinking. It’s never as bad as it was with Mickey, but Ian just assumes that had to do with being young and it being the first time, because thinking that it was anything different – that whatever it was they had as teenagers was actually pretty fucking special by adult standards – is too much to take.)

 

It’s not like New York is fucking perfect or anything – like, things are still rough and sometimes suck. And Ian _hates_ not getting to see Fiona and Debbie and Carl and Liam all the time, hates how he knows that things are just never going to be quite the way they were, that he is building a life that sometimes has nothing to do with them, that they’re doing the same.

 

But this, he thinks, is just how life goes – sometimes things have to chance. And maybe it’s not always fun, but really, it’s good.

 

(Of course, how things have changed between him and Mickey doesn’t feel quite so good, but Ian tries not to think about that.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Around the end of Ian’s freshman year, he starts applying to schools for Mandy – because she’s smarter than people give her credit for, and because she’s been attending community college for the last year, and because he can tell that she almost envies the purpose he has in his life (which is in and of itself kind of funny – Ian never really cared about school for the sake of school all that much, since his entire youth was spent worrying about ROTC and getting into WestPoint. He still wishes that he could into the army, wants to murder his sixteen year old self for enlisting _because of a fucking boy_ , of all things – but it’s getting better. He likes college, more than he expected to at least. He likes being around people he loves. He likes living in the city. He likes actually being able to date guys without them trying to murder him every time he calls them his boyfriend.

 

He doesn’t like not being in the army, but like, what can he fucking do about it?)

 

He applies to ten schools for Mandy – she gets into three.

 

She cries only a little when reading the acceptance letters.

 

“I didn’t really think Milkovich’s were capable of going to fucking college.”

 

Ian just gives her this wry smile. “Yeah, well, you know. If two Gallaghers could fucking do it, there’s no reason why you couldn’t.”

 

This is the point where she starts crying a lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They make a point of visiting Chicago as little as possible (something about Mandy not wanting to run into her dad, Ian not wanting to never want to leave), but what with holidays and graduations and the odd wedding, it’s still pretty often.

 

They go for Debbie and Carl’s graduations, and some of Liam’s birthdays. They go for Fiona’s wedding to Mike, and the birth of her first child. They try to alternate between Christmases, with the family coming up to the city every other year, but Liam’s still young and Fiona is raising the kids, and traveling with a bunch of children is kind of expensive, so they just end of going down most years.

 

(When Terry kicks the bucket, Mandy thinks about heading down for his funeral, but decides against it – “I haven’t spoken to that shit for brains in years and wasn’t making plans to – and it’s not like a round trip would be fucking cheap.” Ian can’t say he disagrees, but he still finds her crying in the bathroom later in the day, saying she doesn’t know why she’s so fucking sad – she hated him. Ian puts his arm around her and secretly wonders if this is what it’ll be like when Frank dies.)

 

He doesn’t ever talk to Mickey whenever he’s down in Chicago, or at least he doesn’t make any effort to. They’ll sometimes run into each other when Ian’s out running earrings or walking around the streets with Mandy (who usually visits with Mick on her own anyway). Sometimes he’s with Svetlana or his brothers, and sometimes he’s alone, but it never seems to change the looks they always share – that are angry and regretful and hopeful and terrifying, and that makes Ian’s heart churn if only for a second.

 

But that’s really all they ever are – a second of longing, a brush off, a momentary thought of sorrow – and then Ian’s heading back home or Mickey’s yelling at Svetlana or whatever, and even though the moments make Ian remember fucking in alleys and kissing in cars, they don’t mean anything. Ian has his life and Mickey has his.

 

(Or maybe they do mean something, but whatever it is it doesn’t matter, because choices have been made and lives ruined, and after everything that’s happened, it not like they’re going to fucking do anything about it.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mickey comes to visit them in the city a couple weeks after Terry dies, says that him and Svetlana have finally called it quits and he needs a place to crash. Nobody asks why he just decided to come stay in New York, or why it is that him and Svetlana chose now to break up – mostly because they all know – and Mandy lets him sleep on the couch in exchange for good manners to whoever it is she’s dating at the time.

 

They actually don’t fuck, even though everyone just sort of expects them to. Ian makes a point of being at the apartment as little as possible, and when he is, he spends virtually all his time huddled up in his room. Mickey doesn’t ever make a move, and Ian doesn’t really expect him to.

 

When he finally leaves a month later, after a particularly nasty fight with Mandy where she calls in a coward, Ian feels sort of guilty, but only just. It’s been way too many years since they went at it, and whether or not Mickey would like to admit it, he does sort of have a life back home that he needs to finish up. Maybe Svetlana and him are over, and maybe (okay, defiantly) the kid isn’t his, but that’s still been his life for the last eight years. Shit has happened in between. Ian finds it hard to even consider the notion that Mickey has been pinning after him all these years – they’ve simply both moved on and grown up.

 

This is what he tells himself to push away the regret.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the second semester of Mandy’s senior year, a new guy named David moves into the apartment below them.

 

He works for an online magazine and smokes parliaments and sometimes invites Ian down to watch the game with him on his big TV. He likes to be called Dave, he’s Jewish, he sometimes listens to his music really load and it annoys the shit out of Mandy, who complains about him all the time likes he’s the fucking plague.

 

One time, after a particularity rough night of studying and the sounds of The Clash echoing through the floor, Mandy throws her book at the wall and starts marching down the outside stairs, shouting about how _the little fucker has done it this time; I’ve had it up to_ _here with his bullshit_ , and banging on his sliding door so loudly the whole building probably hears it.

 

She’s down there for thirty minutes. When she comes up, the music has stopped, and her hair is nicely up in a ponytail.

 

“He said he’d keep it down,” she says with a slight smile, slipping into her room before Ian has the chance to ask any questions.

 

The next day he’s at their doorstep asking if Mandy would like to go out for a drink sometime, and she’s smiling like she’s in fucking high school.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dave asks Mandy to marry him three years later. She would have said yes after two.

 

They plan for a spring wedding. Ian’s made best man, of course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_iii. after_

_june, 2024_

 

They fuck at Mandy’s wedding.

 

(And -- no, Ian’s not going to get into hilarity/irony/whatever the fuck you want to call it of him and Mickey fucking ten years later, at another Milkovich wedding, and how everything is so gaddam different – the bride and the groom are actually pretty fucking in love, the reception is at, you know, a sort of nice place – and yet he’s still in the back room pounding Mickey. Aren’t people supposed to change as they get older?)

 

They have the wedding in Chicago, since all the venues are way too expensive in New York, and everyone comes down and Dave goes and brings in a Rabbi because his mom is still pissed that he’s not marrying a Jewish girl, so Mandy has to pay off her brothers to not beat up her fiancée. (It’s actually the funniest thing ever, watching Mandy negotiate with her brothers so they won’t kill the guy she’s planning to marry, and the way she pretty much shouts, “fine, you fuckwits, go goddamn die”, as she pulls out her wallet. It all gives Ian the weirdest rush of nostalgia.)

 

And it’s actually a surprise to Ian how nice everything turns out, what a good place they get. He’d known that Dave hadn’t grown up as poor as they had, but it’s still sort of a shock to see what a snazzy wedding it is, the marriage of a middle class Jewish boy and a girl from the South Side. If he didn’t love Mandy so goddamn much, he’d have to make fun of her for being such a fucking _Cinderella_ story, poor-ish girl from the wrong side of town marrying a not quite so trashy guy and all. He might do it anyway.

 

(But she still ends up just like her brother, smoking a fag and sort of freaking out right before the ceremony’s supposed to start. She blabs on for like ten or fifteen minutes, longer than she should, just worrying about how it’s _such a big fucking deal_ and _she doesn’t know if she can do it_ and _when did she become this person_ , and Ian just listens and nods his head and tells her what she needs to hear, right up until Mickey barges in the door and yells that she needs to get a fucking move on.

 

“People are gonna start thinking you’ve bailed, dumbass.”

 

Mandy just sort of looks up at the ceiling, flicking her cigarette on the ground and letting Ian put it out, and Ian thinks she’s about to walk up the stairs when she turns around and hugs him, tightly, the way she did the night he returned from the army.

 

“You know…” she says quietly in his ear as she pulls away, widening her eyes to stop herself from crying, because her makeup took forever (she told him), and there is no way in hell she’s going to let mascara run down her face today. Today’s the day she gets to be a fucking princess, goddammit. “… Yeah.”

 

Ian thinks he’s never loved her more. “Yeah.”)

 

The ceremony is beautiful and kind of touching and exactly what a wedding should be like – two people in love deciding that they want each other forever. Ian makes a point of not looking over at Mickey; he doesn’t really want to see what kind of look he’s sporting, whether it’s annoyed or angry or happy or whatever. It’s actually kind of hard not to stare, since Ian’s standing right behind Dave and Mickey’s in the front row, but he makes the effort. It’s wouldn’t do him any good.

 

(And fuck, if he doesn’t look over for just half a second, when Mandy is reading her vows, and Mickey is fucking staring right at him, as though he has been doing it for a long time, and doesn’t look away when they lock eyes. And fuck, fuck, fuck, it’s been like ten years and he’s moved on, fucked – dated – other people, and Mickey’s been married and divorced and is still (finally?) looking at Ian like he’s fucking in love.

 

And dammit if in that little half-a-second look Ian doesn’t realize that they’re actually not fucking over at all.)

 

(So yeah, they fuck at the wedding. The reception. Whatever.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_“I love you and I’m gay”_

_Mickey says it in the back room, midway through the reception as Ian is having a smoke. He’d needed to duck out of everything for a moment, said something quickly to Mandy before looking for a place where no one would find him as he blew smoke and stared at the ceiling._

_(And if Mickey was in earshot when he mentioned this, than fuck off. It’s not like he planned any of it. Just like it would have pissed him off is Mickey hadn’t shown.)_

_“I’m not… I haven’t been waiting for you,” Ian says, and if the words sound harsh on his tongue than Mickey doesn’t notice, just lowers his head, as if to say that he understands – that, before they go any further, this is something Ian needs to say; he has to make clear that he hasn’t just been spending the last ten years waiting around for Mickey to wise up to what they were, pining away and roughing out hard relationships, knowing that his prince would one day come. He hadn’t been under that illusion._

_“I know… but I have.”_

_Ian just flicks his cigarette to the ground and calmly put it out, and if there is maybe something a little desperate in the way that he tugs at Mickey’s hand, neither one of the boys acknowledge it.)_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s after a long and heated debate, with way too many raised voices and tears and ‘but where would [insert person] sleep’, it is finally decided upon; Mandy will move downstairs and live in Dave’s place and still pay her share of the rent for the apartment, but Ian has to keep the other room empty incase Mandy and Dave decide to have kids and want to buy out Ian.

 

(And it’s honestly the biggest fucking joke ever, because they all know that Ian just isn’t going to move and will end up being the uncle who owns the upper apartment that all the kids prefer sleeping at, but whatever – if Mandy wants to believe that her kids will think she’s cooler than Ian, no one is stopping her.)

 

About a week later, Mickey shows up on his doorstep, rambling on about their neighborhood being a dump and him having no reason to stay with Svetlana out of the picture and Mandy married, and how he thinks it makes the most sense for him to just crash with Ian, what with Mandy and Dave being newlyweds and screwing like bunnies and all.

 

And it’s been ten years since Ian had Mickey in his life, ten years since they had any connection other than Mandy – but he’s starting to like the idea of change. Or in this case, a lack of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(It should maybe be mentioned that Mickey opened his request with a kiss. That’s relevant.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_fin._


End file.
